Martin Kove removed from Summer Con after allegedly biting 'Cobra Kai' co-star

Fox News

7 hours ago

Martin Kove was forced to leave a fan convention early over the weekend after he allegedly bit one of his co-stars.
According to Variety, the 78-year-old "Cobra Kai" star was asked to leave Summer Con in Puyallup, Washington, on Sunday after his co-star in the Netflix series, actress Alicia Hannah-Kim, accused him of grabbing her arm and biting her.
According to a report from the Puyallup Police Department, Hannah-Kim, 37, approached an officer in the VIP area after Kove took her arm and bit her "so hard he nearly drew blood," per Variety.
He reportedly let go and began kissing her arm where he had bitten her after she cried out in pain. After telling her husband about the incident, the two approached Kove at the fan event together, after which the report stated he "exploded on them, saying something to the effect of how dare they confront him."
Hannah-Kim and her husband then reportedly asked the officer to step in. According to the report, Kove then claimed he and Hannah-Kim "play fight all the time on the set of 'Cobra Kai'" and that he was just trying to be "funny."
Per the report, the actress told the reporting officer she did not want to file charges against Kove, but that she "wished to have a report filed in case this continues." Kove was then asked to leave the fan event.
Fox News Digital reached out to representatives for both Kove and Hannah-Kim for comment.
Kove is best known for his portrayal of John Kreese in the 1984 movie, "The Karate Kid." Kreese is the main antagonist of the movie, as he is the owner of the karate studio which teaches its students to have "no mercy."
He reprised his role for the Netflix revival series, "Cobra Kai," which picked up 33 years after the events of the original movie. Hannah-Kim joined the show in Season 6, playing Kim Da-Eun, a sensei from South Korea who teams up with Kreese to take down a rival studio, which happens to be owned by Kreese's former student Johnny Lawrence, played by William Zabka, and his former rival, Daniel LaRusso, played by Ralph Macchio.
When speaking with Fox News Digital in February, Kove explained the success of the original movie was because audiences identified with the themes of romance, bullying or feeling like "a fish out of water." He went on to say that the new show introduced a new generation to the film.
WATCH: MARTIN KOVE EXPLAINS WHY HE THINKS 'KARATE KID' HAS STAYED SO POPULAR
"The kids watch it and then the parents say, 'Hey, would you like to see what we were weaned on, what we loved about these characters?' And it's the same characters as Billy [William Zabka], Ralph [Macchio] and I," he explained.
He continued, "So, the parents take the kids, the kids watch the movie. The bottom line is, they loved the movie, and now the parents get hooked on the TV series. So you have all these little [phenomenal] things, these elements of success that people and pictures and TV series, they long for that kind of chemistry."
While his character in the original movie was seen as ruthless, he told Fox News Digital that when approached for the show, he "wasn't interested in doing the guy from 'Karate Kid,'" and wanted his character to have "an arc and emotional colors."